Mr. Deep Throat

Let's think about W. Mark Felt (search) — Mr. Deep Throat — for a moment.

His family says he's a hero and even he's come to think of himself as a hero, too.

But 35 years ago, Felt was second in command to the most feared man in the country, J. Edgar Hoover (search) — the thoroughly ruthless leader and founder of the FBI. Hoover amassed power by using FBI agents to spy on and gather terribly damaging information on everybody on the political landscape, including presidents.

W. Mark Felt was Hoover's No. 2. W. Mark Felt, J. Edgar Hoover. See how the No. 2 guy at the FBI modeled himself after the No. 1 guy?

When Hoover died, Nixon and everybody else in politics breathed a huge sigh of relief. Over five decades, nobody had ever been able to curb Hoover's wild misuse of FBI power.

Nixon or any president — Republican or Democrat — would have been out of his or her mind to name Hoover's No. 2 as the new head of the FBI. The last thing anybody would want is that power trip of Hoover's being passed on to the next generation. Fate hands you a gift and takes J. Edgar Hoover — the last thing you do is promote his mini-me, W. Mark.

Seriously, who would do that?

So Felt was angry he didn't get the job. Vengeance was a motive in leaking information about Nixon. Some say Felt wanted to protect the FBI from Nixon's attempts to corrupt it.

Maybe Nixon was doing that. Maybe not.

But it is reasonable to assume that W. Mark wanted to continue the Hoover legacy — the power and fear of a domestic KGB (search) and Nixon got in his way.

We're all better off that Nixon ended the Hoover era by not promoting Hoover's second-in-command.

And, by the way, W. Mark Felt's most famous words to Bob Woodward (search): "Follow the money."

You do that right now and you discover why Felt is admitting he was Deep Throat. He wants money, said so himself. Think mega book deal.

So whoever wants to arrange the ticker tape parade for W. Mark Felt, go ahead.

I'll be staying home.

That's My Word.

Watch John Gibson weekdays at 5 p.m. ET on "The Big Story" and send your comments to: myword@foxnews.com